by 1501: "By
re-introducing public
worship, the reformers displaced virtually overnight a thousand
years of high church
ritual. The Reformation
fathers condemned the Gregorian Chant for some very telling reasons,
revealing along the way their own evolving concepts of music.

They objected to
the distractions of elaborate vocal and instrumental music, the dangers of overly theatrical performances, the unwarranted expense
of elaborate ceremonies and enormous pipe organs and the uselessness of text unintelligible to the common man.

"Contrasting the
high church's entrenched musical traditions
was the simple and
pragmatic approach of
men like Martin Luther. One of Luther's stated goals was the
restoration of true worship.

He understood the
tremendous benefit resulting from hearing the word of
God and then
uniting as a congregation to offer thanksgiving in
song.

This stress on congregational
participation in worship became a lynchpin of the Reformation.

In 1523, Thomas Muntzer was the first to replace
the clerical choir with
congregational singing,
using virtually the same music. He translated thetext
into the vernacular--a
true beginning of the restoration of biblical psalm singing among the people. Chuck From

ON MUSIC: Luther saw music not as a liturgical act but a
natural talent to be used in the world:

Music is an
outstanding gift of God and next to theology. I would not give up my
slight knowledge of music for a great consideration. And youth should
be taught this art; for it makes fine skillful people (W-T 3, No.
3815).

Nor am I at all of the opinion
that all the arts are to be overthrown and cast aside by the Gospel,
as some superspiritual people protest; but I would gladly see all the
arts, especially music, in the service of Him who has given and
created them (W 35, 474).

"For we hold that a man is
justified by faith
apart from works of
law" (Rom. 3:28)
because he felt it was demanded by the German. The word
alone or only
was retained by the Reformers after him because it seemed to
safeguard this important doctrine against such perversions as might
seem to make salvation dependent on human achievement or a reward for human merit.

"This difference between the
Law and the Gospel
is the height of knowledge in Christendom. Every person and all
persons who assume or glory in the name of Christian should know and
be able to state this difference. If this ability is lacking, one
cannot tell a Christian from a heathen or a Jew; of such supreme
importance is this differentiation.

This is why St.
Paul so strongly insists on a clean-cut and proper differentiating of
these two doctrines. (Sermon on Galatians 1532)

It may be Post-Modern but it is
neither Biblical nor rational to define obedience to the express
commands or Christ or to obey even hints which we receive through His
Word is legalism.

It is
not possible to administer grace by theatrical performance or by a musical instrument.

Therefore, musical worship is
not related to salvation. To add it in the midst of general -- if
unspoken -- unrest is to become sectarian and law-based.

Luther would go beyond and say
that:

"The organ in the worship Is
the insignia of Baal" The Roman Catholic borrowed it from the Jews."
(Martin Luther, Mcclintock & Strong's Encyclopedia Volume VI,
page 762)

"That with one
accord ye may with one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord
JesusChrist."

52. All the good we can do to
God is to praise and to thank him. This is the only true service we can render him, according to his
words in Psalm 50, 23:

"Whoso offereth the
sacrifice of thanksgiving glorifieth me; and to him that ordereth his way aright will I
show the salvation of God."

We receive all blessings from
him, in return for which we should make the offering of praise. If
anything else purporting to be service to God is presented for your
consideration rest assured it is erroneous and delusive.

For instance, the distracted
world attempts to serve God by setting apart houses, churches, cloisters; vestures, gold-trimmed, silk
and
[50] every other kind;

silver vessels and
images; bells and
organs, candles and lamps;
the money for which expense should have been appropriated to the
poor if the object was to make an offering
to God.

Further, it keeps up a
muttering and wailing in
the churches day and night. But true praise and honor of God, a service that
cannot be confined to place or person, is quietly ignored the world
over.

The pretenses of priests and
monks about their system of exercises being service to the Lord, are
false and delusive.

53. Service to God is
praise
of him. It must be free
and voluntary, at table,
in the chamber, cellar,
garret, in house
or field, in all places, with all persons, at
all times. Whosoever teaches otherwise is no less guilty of falsehood than the
Pope and the devil himself.

But how shall there be with us
honor and praise of God, true service to him, when we neither love
him nor receive his blessings? And how shall we love him when we do
not know him and his blessings?

And how shall we
know him and his blessings when no word is
preached concerning them and when the Gospel is left to lie under the
table?
Where the Gospel
is not in evidence, knowledge of God is an impossibility.

Then to love and praise him is
likewise impossible. As a further consequence it is necessarily
impossible for divine service to exist.

Even if all the
choristers were one
chorister, all the
priests one priest, all the monks one monk, all
the churches one church,

all the bells one
bell; in brief if all the foolish services offered to God in the
institutions,

churches and cloisters were
a hundred thousand times greater and more numerous than they are,--what does God care for such carnivals and
juggling?

54. Therefore, God complains
most of the Jews in the second chapter of Micah,

because they
silenced his
praise, while at the
same time, they piped,
blared and moaned
like we do.

True divine service
of praise cannot be
established with revenues,
nor be circumscribed by laws and statutes.

High and low festivals have
nothing to do with it.
It emanates from the
Gospel, and certainly
is as often rendered by a poor, rustic servant as by a great
bishop. [51]

Paul "found that, especially in the
Church at Corinth, which he had converted by the words of his own
lips and brought to faith in Christ, soon after his departure the
devil introduced his heresies whereby the people were turned from the
truth and betrayed into other ways....

And this is how it is he comes
to speak in high terms of praise of the ministration of the Gospel
and to contrast and compare the twofold ministration or message which
may be proclaimed in the Church, provided, of course, that
God's
Word is to be
preached and not the nonsense of human falsehood
and the doctrine of
the devil.

One is that of the
Old Testament, the other of the New; in other words, the office of
Moses, or the Law,

and the office of the Gospel of
Christ. He
contrasts the glory and
power of the latter with those of the former, which, it is true, is
also the Word of God.

In this manner he endeavors to
defeat the teachings and pretensions of those
seductive
spirits who, as he but
lately foretold, pervert God"s Word,

in that they
greatly extol the Law of God, yet at best do not teach its right
use,
but, instead of making it tributary to faith in Christ, misuse it to
teach
work-righteousness.
Sermon by by Martin Luther (1483-1546)

In His Cathecism, Martin
Luther wrote:

The word
holy day (Feiertag) is rendered from the Hebrew word sabbath which properly signifies to rest, that is, to abstain from labor. Hence we are
accustomed to say, Feierbend machen [that is, to cease working], or
heiligen Abend geben [sanctify the Sabbath].

Now, in the Old Testament, God
separated the seventh day, and appointed it for rest, and commanded that it should be regarded as
holy above all others.

As regards this
external observance, this commandment
was given to the Jews
alone, that they should abstain from toilsome work, and rest, so that both man and beast might
recuperate, and not be
weakened by unremitting labor.

The First day and Seventh day
were for a holy convocation. This word means to READ or give
attention to the Word of God. This was like the synagogue "which
never had a praise service."

Although they afterwards
restricted this too closely, and grossly abused it, so that they
traduced and could not endure in Christ those works which they
themselves were accustomed to do on that day, as we read in the
Gospel

just as though the
commandment were fulfilled by doing no
external [manual] work whatever, which, however, was not the meaning,
but, as we shall hear,

that they sanctify the holy day
or day of rest. This commandment, therefore, according to its gross sense, does not
concern us Christians;
for it is altogether an external matter,

like other
ordinances of the Old Testament, which were attached to particular
customs, persons, times, and places,
and now have been made free through Christ. Larger Cathechism

Speaking of Psalm
150:

The same harmony of comparative
thought appears in the two clauses of this verse as in such passages
as 1Ki 8:13,49 Isa 62:15.

The place of worship where God specially
hears prayer and
accepts praise, and the firmament where angels fly at his command,
and veil their faces in adoration, are each a sanctuary.

The sanctuary is manifestly
here looked at as the temple of grace, the firmament as the temple of power. So the verse proclaims both grace and
glory. --Martin Geier.

KURTZ "At first the church music was simple,
artless, recitative. But rivalry of heretics forced the orthodox
church to pay greater attention to the requirements of art.
Chrysostom had to declaim against the secularization of church music.
More lasting was the opposition to the introduction of instrumental
music." (John Kurtz, Lutheran Scholar, Church History, Vol 1, p.
376)

"The Reformation unsealed the Psalter, so
that Christ's people might once more drink freely of this fountain of
salvation...The Lutheran Reformation restored congregational singing.
By 1524 Luther had versified Pss 12, 67, and 130. (Int Std Bible
Ency., Psalms, p. 2494A).

The practice among Reformed
churches was spotty. For instance, many of the churches removed the idols,
painted over the art, and destroyed the
organs but some continued to use them.
his continued use by the reformed church in Basel was not without
opposition: Erasmus (Desiderius), the man who produced the first
Greek New Testament (1517), which became the Textus Receptus, had the
following to say:

"Like most religious reformers, Calvin relied
on song by the people, and discourages musical instruments which he
compared to childish toys which ought to be put away in manhood. So
deeply did his teaching sink into the Genevans, that three years
after his death they melted down the pipes of the organ in his
church, to form flagons for the communion. And his principle were
adopted widely in Britain." (W. T. Whitley, Congregational
Hymn-Singing (London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1933, p.
58).

"One of the developments in which
Beza was of great assistance was in Reformed psalmody. Zwingli had
opposed music in public worship and it was a century or so after
his death before the Reformed Churches in which his influence was
strong departed from that precedent.

Calvin did not go as far as Zwingli, but
confined the use of music to congregational singing in
unison of metrical versions of the
Psalms and Canticles." (Latourette, p.
760).